


Sentimentality

by bloodandcream



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Collars, Face-Fucking, Hand Jobs, Introspective Castiel, M/M, Puppy Play, Sub Sam, mention of SamxJess, oh my god thats actually a tag I had no idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 01:38:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodandcream/pseuds/bloodandcream
Summary: Sentimentality. A very human thing.





	

Castiel found himself distracted by not much at all, his eyes roaming the same page of his book several times without seeing any of the words. The book sat haphazardly on the curve of Sam’s shoulder, propped up in one hand. Castiel’s other hand was too busy stroking down the warm skin of Sam’s side to bother with flipping the page, anyway. Setting the book aside, he was content to let the langour of the afternoon lull him.

Stretched out along the bed he shared in the bunker with Sam and leaning back against the headboard, Castiel shifted his legs slowly so as not to disturb Sam. It was amusing, how small Sam could tuck himself in, legs drawn up, curled against Castiel’s hip with his broad chest and long arms draped over the offered lap.

The only thing that Sam wore was a wide, brown collar. Pulling long hair back, Castiel pet over the soft leather, skin warmed, and flicked the little heart shaped charm dangling from the front. It made a pleasant chiming noise. Although the collar was new, picked out by Castiel himself, the charm was very old.

He hadn’t meant to find it.

As Castiel had slowly migrated from his own occasionally used room into Sam’s, as he spent more time living in the bunker and settling down, what meager possessions he had became mixed up with Sam’s. What organization Sam had was hopelessly ruined by Castiel’s efforts to help, his untidy laundry habits and his belief that if everything was in a drawer then everything was where it should be. As such, Castiel spent time rummaging. He hadn’t considered that Sam would have any secrets to keep from him.

Perhaps, secret wasn’t the right word.

It was something that Sam had failed to tell him. A plain black collar with a little heart charm that was stamped in simple letters with ‘Sam’.

_Jess gave that to me  
_

There was still a distant sadness in Sam’s eyes when he had plucked the collar from Castiel’s curious hands, a hushed reverence to his voice. It was a sentimentality. Castiel had not understood such things until he learned what it was to be human, until he realized his mistakes only in the after, like leaving behind a bloody trench coat in favor of a bottle of water. He still missed that coat, sometimes, although he couldn’t quite put a finger on why.

Sentimentality. A very human thing.

So Sam told him, in a soft way, about what Jessica had taught him and what she had meant to him. He told Castiel of the pain of newfound freedom and how strangely it clashed with a need for tight kept secrets. How unmoored he had been. Uprooted. It was easier, to slough these human things and let Jessica take care of him sometimes. To give himself over, and become something else.

It amazed Castiel, that Sam had kept the collar for so long. That he had found it time and again, through loss of family and upheaval and death and even when he had no soul. Even then, he held to his sentimentality and reminded himself of old lessons. There must be certain things passed between the brothers and kept, valued possessions tucked in duffel bags and held onto as a promise. Like the photograph Dean kept of Mary by his bedside, it must have passed hands so many times but always found itself back in Dean’s hold.

The black collar, Jessica’s collar, had been tucked in the bottom of a drawer. Upon discovery, and in realizing what it had meant to Sam, Castiel had wanted to offer that as well. Not as a replacement. But, he was still stumbling through realizations about what Sam needed, about what Castiel needed, about how they fit together.

Sam had wanted to keep the heart charm, move it to the collar that Castiel had gotten for him. Castiel didn’t mind if a part of Sam still belonged to Jessica.

Pulled slowly from his milling thoughts by Sam pressing closer, a hand sneaking underneath Castiel’s thigh, nose nudging up under the hem of his soft pajama shirt, Castiel realized he’d stopped petting Sam. This, of course, was a grievous oversight. He had thought Sam napping, but dozing might be more accurate. Drawing one hand through Sam’s long hair, Castiel resumed broad, even strokes down the soft skin of Sam’s side and over the curve of his hip.

He’d lost a little weight, a little muscle lately. The concern over this was evident in Dean’s fussy cooking habits. Castiel was not sure if it were from stress or age, but he found it an agreeable habit to monitor the condition of Sam’s body – and by correlation his health – with hands and mouth. Sam would submit himself to Castiel’s concern if provided the right incentive.

Muscle shifting under skin as he moved, slowly uncurling then winding himself tighter around Castiel, Sam pressed his erection to Castiel’s thigh as he sprawled half over Castiel and pinned him. Castiel traced the edges of bone with fingertips, along the swoop of scapula, tripping over the bare suggestion of ribs that pressed out with deep breaths, the  graceful line of a clavicle. It was reassuring, to feel the warmth and the pulse of life beneath his hand as Castiel pressed it over Sam’s breastbone.

The heart shaped charm chimed as Sam roused to wakefulness, more purposeful with the press of his mouth against the sensitive skin below Castiel’s naval and trailing lower. He did not touch with his hands, or speak. There was a certain gentleness in the quiet when Sam wore his collar, and Castiel found that he did not need to break it to communicate. It was a fundamental shift into something other for Sam, something simpler.

Lifting his hips up to push his pajamas down his thighs, Castiel rested both hands on Sam’s head and curved them gently around the shape of his skull, sweeping down his neck and out across his shoulders, lingering along the line of his spine because Sam would shiver for it and press a whine into the soft of Castiel’s belly.

There were times when Sam could be rough and insistent in his need, when he could be firm in taking what he wanted from Castiel, and Castiel found enjoyment in submission as well. The pliancy as Sam let himself be led was intoxicating in its own way though. Hazel eyes watching up the curve of Castiel’s body as he guided Sam down, slid a hand around his neck and fanned fingers across his face to hook a thumb in the corner of his mouth, Castiel owned what he wanted and that was the pink offer of Sam’s mouth.

Pressing a hand to the back of Sam’s neck, spreading along the skin warmed leather collar, Castiel used his mouth. Sam was eager but deferential to Castiel, tongue insistent to push back as Castiel slid deeper. With soft encouragements and a word of praise, Sam moved to brace both hands beside Castiel’s hips and slide his mouth faster, working at his own erratic pace as he lingered open mouthed at the head, lay teasing kisses along the shaft before opening again and swallowing Castiel whole.

Straddling one of Castiel’s legs, curled over him, Sam humped the line of his shin. Mouth making a mess spit-sloppy and uncaring, Castiel had found that Sam was less refined, more reckless when he wore his collar. He shifted impatiently, cock smearing wet over Castiel’s leg, and whined when he pulled up to lick broad stripes over the head as he looked at Castiel and somehow there was a small pout to his lips even as they dragged teasing kisses over heated skin.

Castiel soothed him with touch and cradled his face in both hands, holding him still. Loud in the stillness of their bedroom, he fucked Sam’s mouth. Sliding a hand down to hook fingers under the edge of the collar, heart charm swinging noisily, Castiel pulled Sam down by it and pressed into his throat, silk heat convulsing around his cock and he came buried deep as his hold loosened, Sam still grinding against him.

Murmuring praise, Castiel dragged Sam up his body, pressing a hand to the back of a muscular thigh to bring Sam’s leg straddled wide over his lap. Taking his cock in hand, Castiel stroked him and brought the other hand to wipe at the mess of his face. Viscous spit and come dripping down his chin, Castiel swiped some aside and wiped his hand on the sheets before pressing it to the space in the small of Sam’s back and bringing him closer.

Grunting in time with the shove of his hips into Castiel’s fist, Sam braced both heavy hands on his shoulders and leaned close enough his breath ghosted over Castiel’s lips. Hair falling around his face in sweat damp strands, high flush on his cheeks, Sam was perfectly obedient and endearingly entreating like this. Castiel tipped up to kiss him, sucking on the slick swell of his mouth. Shaking, Sam curled into Castiel’s hold and came wetly over the bare skin of his lower belly and the cotton night shirt still rucked up around his chest.

Tucking his head into the curve of Castiel’s shoulder, Sam folded his arms in and settled himself as tight and small on Castiel’s lap as he could, nevermind the sticky mess between them. Reassuring him with firm strokes down his back and along the spread of his thighs, Castiel kissed him and pet him and lay him down under the sheets.

“Would you like me to take that off before bed?”

The only answer was Sam pressing his face against Castiel’s thigh. Tucking the blankets around him tighter, Castiel stood and swiped the pout off Sam’s face with a drag of his thumb.

“I’m going to get tea, maybe a snack?”

Sam only hummed and buried his face in the pillow.

Pulling on a robe and padding quietly into the kitchen, contemplating chamomile versus peppermint, Castiel found himself bringing down two familiar mugs. They had a whole shelf of the cupboard lined with mugs, most of them the brown-lipped white ceramic mugs that came with the bunker. But the longer that Sam and Dean - and Castiel - called the place home, the more little pieces of color and modernism made their appearance.

There was a shelf of mugs to pick from, and Castiel pulled down the two he had purchased on a whim from an antique shop they were at looking for an artifact. There was nothing special about them, both a pale yellow with bright painted sunflowers, but he liked the color. And if they sat in the cupboard clean, he would use them over any of the other mugs.

Attachments to physical items was still sometimes strange and seeming unnecessary, but he was beginning to understand the purpose. It wasn’t the thing itself, but it was the associations that the thing had the power to evoke. Chain-links backward to a different place and time, to a particular moment. The first night Sam had kissed him, crowded against the door of a motel who’s name is now forgotten, but the feel of his body pressing against Castiel and the warmth of his breath, the swell of affection and that moment of ‘ah’ when the axis between them shifted and Castiel realized what that intangible something that had been crackling around the edges of his consciousness meant. And the next day, when the world was somehow brighter and a simple yellow mug had made him smile, when Sam studying the stamp on a ceremonial dagger beside him had said cheerfully ‘you should get them’.

It’s a curious thing, this sentimentality. A favored mug. A scratched old charm on a dog collar. Pieces of other people, memories. Connection to the external. Castiel was beginning to understand.  


End file.
